As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
As processors, graphics cards, random access memory (RAM) and other components in information handling systems have increased in clock speed and power consumption, the amount of heat produced by such components as a side-effect of normal operation has also increased. Often, the temperatures of these components need to be kept within a reasonable range to prevent overheating, instability, malfunction and damage leading to a shortened component lifespan. Accordingly, air movers (e.g., cooling fans and blowers) have often been used in information handling systems to cool information handling systems and their components.
Temperature control in an information handling system with air movers often involves use of a closed-loop feedback system that alters air mover speed or throttles component performance in response to a sensed temperature in the information handling system. A controller of the closed-loop feedback system is typically tuned to account for known system interactions. However, even well-tuned controllers may suffer from undesirable oscillation which may cause psychoacoustical annoyance to a user of the information handling system, leading to bad customer experience.
Oscillation may have numerous sources. One source of oscillation may be an unstable controller response, in which a response of a controller continually overcompensates, then undercompensates a desired temperature or other parameter setpoint. Another source of oscillation may be an oscillating workload of information handling system components, which causes an oscillating temperature, which in turn causes an oscillating blower speed response.